Selling luxury real estate requires far more than uploading the listing to the MLS and arranging a few digital ads. Luxury properties typically take longer to sell, though they come with a much higher commission. Here are our top tips for helping sell luxury real estate.
Table of Contents
Embrace the Digital
Even if someone isn’t in the area yet or can’t attend an open house, potential homebuyers can use virtual reality and 360-degree tours to determine which homes they may want to buy in the future. This will drive demand for video specialists and drone operators to capture high definition 360-degree video of every room in the home. This is in addition to providing an engaging tour of the yard and any views home buyers would want to know about. A side benefit of using drone footage and 360 degree tours to help sell luxury real estate in Seattle is that it helps you sell the home to international and out-of-town buyers who otherwise might not be able to get a feel for the property. You’ll also stand out relative to those who just post a few pictures of the house online.
You could take things to the next level with virtual staging services. They might add virtual furniture or blooming flowers to an outdoor space to make the virtual home tour more appealing. However, these cannot end up looking like cheap CGI, or you’ll lose the respect of potential home buyers.
Don’t Forget Email
Email marketing has a number of benefits. You can use customer segmenting to limit the emails you send out to your most likely buyers. Your messages to customers aren’t going to be lost in a feed filled with social media updates and the latest headlines. You can use email to reach people who are rarely on social media. It allows you to tap into a geographically diverse market without having to alter your website’s location-based search engine optimization. You can send links to your rich multimedia presentations and you can track the click through rate for the emails, so you know who to follow up with later.
Plan Your Print Advertising Campaign Carefully
It is a waste of time and money to put luxury home ads in magazines read by people who cannot afford the properties. Furthermore, you’re making a mistake if your print ads are not comparable to the competition’s. Use high quality images of the home in your advertisements. Have ads that are as large as those taken out by other realtors in the same publication. Take it to the next level by tying your ad to the content in the magazine. For example, if you’re putting a luxury real estate ad in a golfing magazine, only showcase homes that are perfect for golfers such as those in walking distance to a country club.
Help a Reporter Out
Help a Reporter Out or HARO is a tool where professionals across the board can register as experts available to answer questions and provide quotes. Sign up as an expert with HARO. You could be interviewed in the newspaper as a subject matter expert about the luxury real estate market or real estate in general. Include references to your business and your expertise. This builds your profile with the local community. The references to your name and business on the newspaper’s site are considered to be trustworthy by search engines, so it will increase the search engine results ranking of your “brand”. And these articles will spread through local social networks, putting you in front of your target audience.
